Another three to five surgeries will follow over the next year. Alexander Dagum, who will lead the team of surgeons who will perform the eight hour operation on Dunia on Monday on New York’s Long Island. The surgery to repair Dunia’s lips is very rare, according to Stony Brook Chief of Plastic Surgery Dr. He’s also unable to make certain speech sounds with no lips.” “Having no lips makes it very challenging for Dunia to chew and swallow food, so he’s compensated by tipping his head back to eat. The animals killed the friend, killed and dismembered his brother and left Dunia severely injured. When he was 6, Siboman was playing with his 4-year-old brother and a friend near Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo when they were attacked by a troop of chimps. The hospital team volunteered it’s services and the boy is receiving support for several community organizations on Long Island. The first procedure will take at least 8-hours. The child will start the first of at least five rounds of surgeries on Monday. “He drools all the time and can’t pronounce different words but hopefully we can change that with the surgery.” Alexander Dagum at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital, where Dunia will undergo the operation. “As you can imagine, not having any lips, the food can just come right out,” said Dr. The other boys died but Dunia survived, though he was severely disfigured, his lips ripped off and one cheek torn apart, leaving him with muscle damage that make it hard for him to eat, swallow and communicate. Two years ago a group of chimpanzees attacked him and two other boys as they played near a preserve in their native Democratic Republic of the Congo. NEW YORK - Eight-year-old Dunia Sibomana is being called one of the the lucky ones. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. He then dashed off to a playroom where he hopped onto a red scooter and marvelled at an abundance of toys that will be used by therapists to help him recover from his surgeries.This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. "One second!" chirped Sibomana in English as doctors tried to finish his examination. "We try to make it beautiful because we don't want just normal," Dagum said, noting that Sibomana would be the youngest recipient of a double lip reconstruction.ĭuring a meeting with doctors this week, Sibomana's eyes sparkled as he used a remote control to raise and lower an exam table, mischievously sticking his tongue out at doctors who asked him to stop playing with their equipment. In a subsequent surgery, muscle from Sibomana's cheek will be used to allow him to move his new lips, Dr Dagum said, adding that the lips may later be tattooed to give them appropriate colour. One of the rangers accompanied the child to the United States, while Sibomana's widowed father stayed behind. The rangers connected Sibomana with Stony Brook Children's Hospital through famed anthropologist Richard Leakey, who teaches at Stony Brook University. Sibomana's younger brother was killed in the attack. They believe he may have been killed in the attack or so severely disfigured that he chose to hide from friends and family, officials said. Park rangers in Democratic Republic of Congo are still searching for Sibomana's older cousin, who was part of a group of children attacked by the chimpanzees. Still, the 22kg boy has gained weight in recent weeks, Klempner said. He has acquired a taste for chicken fingers and pizza, although he has some difficulty keeping food in his mouth without lips.
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